Although Heroes Chronicles: Conquest of the Underworld appealed to me more than the previous game in this side-story series did, it’s still not enough gameplay to warrant a purchase. With the ungodly number of hours of gameplay in Heroes III: Complete, there’s not much reason to pick up a title you can beat in a long weekend and never look at again. If you’re a Heroes completist, you may want to pick it up; if not, go for Heroes III: Complete instead.

The target of the game is, of course, people that did play previous titles and that are mad fans of Ad&d and 'stuff' like that. Anyway may also result as an interesting game change for people playing Civilization and it's great number of followup and clones.

The graphical elements are not the best (the game only requires a Pentium 133 processor and 32 megs of hard drive space), and the sound quality falls a little short, but the program appeals to a wide range of players because of its lack of violence, easy player interface and customizable difficulty levels.

In addition, Conquest of the Underworld offers no real replay value once you finish it, and it doesn't have much to offer players who are new to Heroes of Might and Magic, since it's just as accessible and easy to play as every other game in the series. Instead, this second Heroes Chronicles game is most suitable for those who liked the story in the first one, Warlords of the Wasteland. These die-hard Heroes of Might and Magic fans will enjoy Tarnum's journey through the underworld, if not because it's a fairly good story, then because it's an addition to the Might and Magic canon.

Like Warlords of the Wasteland, Conquest of the Underworld comes with a budget price tag of $20. Once again though, this is only one of a series of four tales, so if you're looking to redeem Tarnum completely, it's going to cost you four times that amount. Does $20 sound like a sound investment for 8 missions? How about $80 for 32 missions? Neither sounds that great to me and you just know it's only a matter of time before a product along the lines of Heroes Chronicles Collection comes down the pipeline, undoubtedly at a very reasonable price. If you can wait that long, I suggest you do.

If you're a big fan of the series and don't mind paying $15-20 for eight new scenarios, it's a good buy. You get fun, well-designed scenarios that hang together well due to the mildly interesting story. The real irony is that if you've never touched the Heroes series, 3DO is hoping that you'll try these Chronicles, yet a far better deal is to buy the latest version of the complete game. It would be a bit easier to be enthusiastic about these Chronicles if 3DO had included a bit more value, like a handful of standalone scenarios. My recommendation for new players is to download the Heroes 3 demo, try it, and if you like it, get Heroes of Might & Magic III Complete and bypass these Chronicles for now. Given 3DO's proclivity for yanking the udders of this series, you can bet that at some point next year all four Chronicles will be packaged together at a reduced price. If you listen closely, you can hear that cow mooing.